Left-wing parties accuse the PP of hypocrisy, pointing out for example that it was a PP-led administration in Valencia that mishandled the deadly floods in October 2024 in which 229 people died. Carlos Mazón, the PP’s then-president of the Valencia region, was at a restaurant for hours as the crisis unfolded. He didn’t resign until a year later.
Alberto Ibáñez, member of parliament for the leftist Valencian party Compromís, said that the PP “is in no position to lecture anyone on public ethics.” The conservative party “is still keeping Mazón in his seat in the Valencian parliament to preserve his parliamentary protection and keep him from being tried,” said Ibáñez.
Intriguingly, however, the Socialists do look like they are trying to play the PP at its own game. After Óscar Puente resigned as minister of transport after the rail crash, Sánchez chose his most technocratic and discreet minister to lead the transport department: Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo. The Socialists also want to look like cool-headed managers.
Division of labor
For now, the PP and Vox seem content to keep out of each other’s way, as long as it enables them to topple Sánchez.
In a recent op-ed in Diario de Cádiz, Enrique García-Máiquez, a Vox candidate for the senate, writing about a possible rightward shift by the PP, said that “it would be wise for the two parties ready to kick out Sánchez not to step on each other’s toes on the dance floor.”
Political scientist Fernández Vázquez thought there were tangible signs of cooperation. “Unlike the 2023 campaign, Catalonia is now a topic that isn’t talked about at all. Why? Because the right’s takeaway was that they didn’t get the majority three years ago due to an extraordinary voter turnout in Catalonia that heavily favored the Socialists,” he said.
But he warned that the PP-Vox truce would likely fall apart after the election.
“If they ultimately form a government, things will not be easy for Feijóo. Vox will exert significant pressure and will derive a certain satisfaction from occasionally forcing his hand and humiliating him — because that’s rooted in Vox’s origins.”